The pyramids take one morning. Egypt takes a fortnight.
Which Giza tour actually goes inside a pyramid. What a balloon over the Luxor west bank costs at first light. Whether Abu Simbel is worth the four o’clock start from Aswan. Reviews of every tour you can book in Egypt.
Giza, a Luxor dawn, a Red Sea sandbank, the far south.
The four bookings a first Egyptian trip gets built around. What each one costs, and what the people who took it say.
01The first morningPyramids & Great Sphinx Private Tour with Camel RideKhufu, Khafre and the Sphinx with a car and a guide of your own. Take the eight o’clock slot, before the coach groups reach the gate.
02Before sunriseHot Air Balloon Ride in Luxor Egypt with Transfers IncludedUp over the Valley of the Kings while the fields are still grey. The fleet flies at first light and is down again inside ninety minutes.
03The Red Sea dayLuxury Cruise Trip to Orange Bay with LunchOut to the Orange Bay sandbank with lunch cooked on board. The one day of the trip nobody wants to cut short.
04The far southAbu Simbel Temple Day Trip with Hotel PickupThree hours south of Aswan for Ramses’ four seated colossi. One departure a day, and it leaves in the dark.
In Hurghada the day starts at the marina, not the hotel.
The reef is twenty minutes offshore, the sandbank at Orange Bay is an hour, and the dolphins at Dolphin House turn up on their own schedule. Three kinds of Red Sea day, and what it costs to board each one.
Six Egyptian bases, and the best day out from each.
A capital of twenty million, a plateau of tombs on its western edge, the temple city upstream, the granite town at the cataract, and two coasts where the reef starts a swim from the beach.
Four thousand years of it, and most within an hour of Cairo.
Khufu on the plateau, Djoser’s step pyramid at Saqqara, Ramses lying on his back in the shed at Memphis, and Tutankhamun’s gold across the river in the new museum. Do the plateau first; the coaches land at nine.
Egypt’s most booked days out.
Every Egyptian tour we have reviewed →The tours more travellers take than anything else in the country, and what earns each of them the slot.
1
Luxor Valley of the Kings & Tutankhamun Tomb Trip
Explore Luxor from Hurghada with Karnak, the Valley of the Kings, Hatshepsut Temple, lunch, guides, and optional Nile crossing.
From · $76
Read our review →
2
Pyramids & Great Sphinx Private Tour with Camel Ride
from $48
3
Tour to Giza Pyramids and The Egyptian Museum
from $155
4
Cairo and Giza Highlights Full-Day Tour
from $76
5
Luxury Cruise Trip to Orange Bay with Lunch
from $53
6
Luxor Day Trip from Hurghada Small Group & Tutankhamun Tomb
from $95
7
Orange Bay Island Boat Trip w/ Breakfast and Lunch
from $34
8
Royal Seascope Submarine Cruise with Snorkel Stop
from $21
Nothing in Egypt happens out of sight of the Nile.
Feluccas at Aswan that tack across to Elephantine on the evening wind, cruise boats that take four days between Aswan and Luxor, and dinner boats in Cairo that cast off after dark with the bridges lit behind them. Pick a hull and the country arranges itself around it.
Three things that only happen in Egypt.
Balloons and desert camps exist elsewhere. Not over a valley of painted tombs, not in front of a temple that was sawn up and carried uphill, and not among chalk towers left standing by the wind.
Balloons over the West Bank
The fleet inflates on the sugar-cane flats opposite Luxor while it is still dark, and lifts as the sun clears the eastern cliff. From a thousand feet the Ramesseum, the Colossi and the entrance path into the Valley of the Kings all sit in one frame. Flights last around forty-five minutes and the whole fleet is packed away by breakfast.
- 1Hot Air Balloon Ride in Luxor Egypt with Transfers Included★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 4,319 reviews
- 24-Days Nile Cruise From Aswan To Luxor including Abu Simbel and Hot Air Balloon★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 3,142 reviews
- 3Hot Air Balloon Ride over Luxor Relics★★★★★★★★★★ 4.8 · 1,681 reviews
Abu Simbel, moved uphill
Ramses cut his four seated colossi into a Nubian cliff 280km south of Aswan, and in the 1960s the whole facade was sawn into blocks and rebuilt sixty metres higher to keep it above the rising lake. Twice a year the dawn light still reaches the back wall of the sanctuary, which is the trick the original alignment was built for.
- 14-Days Nile Cruise From Aswan To Luxor including Abu Simbel and Hot Air Balloon★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 3,142 reviews
- 2Abu Simbel Temple Day Trip with Hotel Pickup★★★★★★★★★★ 4.4 · 2,807 reviews
- 34-Day 3-Night Nile Cruise from Aswan to Luxor&Abu Simbel+Balloon★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 2,023 reviews
A night in the White Desert
Four hours west of the Nile the ground turns to white chalk, wind-carved into mushrooms and towers that glow after dark. Trips run overnight from the Bahariya oasis: a 4x4 across the black basalt desert, dinner cooked over a fire and a mattress in the open. Nights are cold from November, whatever the afternoon does.
- 12-Day Bahariya Oasis Camp and Desert Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.9 · 616 reviews
- 2White Desert – Overnight Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 251 reviews
- 3Bahariya Oasis & White Desert A Private Day Adventure★★★★★★★★★★ 4.7 · 143 reviews
What a day in Egypt actually costs.
Every tour on the site, grouped by the price on the door. A surprising share of the best Egyptian days come in under the cost of a taxi to the airport.
Quad runs into the desert, camel hours at Giza, reef boats out of Hurghada and the plateau half-day.
The full-day standards: Cairo and Giza with a guide, the balloon at Luxor, Abu Simbel from Aswan.
Multi-day Nile cruises, private cars with an Egyptologist, and the flight down to Luxor and back.
Hurghada sells the whole of Egypt as a day trip.
Boats to Orange Bay in the morning, quad bikes into the desert at four, and coaches that leave before midnight for Luxor and are back in time for dinner. Nowhere else on the coast packs a week this hard.
Every Hurghada day out →
Four Egyptian bookings that will not wait.
Most of this country can be arranged at the hotel desk the night before. These four run on departure times, dawn slots and sailing days that take no interest in when your flight lands.
- 014-Days Nile Cruise From Aswan To Luxor including Abu Simbel and Hot Air BalloonIt is a three-hour drive each way from Aswan and the road tours leave in the dark, once a day. There is no second departure to catch.
- 02Hot Air Balloon Ride in Luxor Egypt with Transfers IncludedBalloons fly at first light and only at first light. The Luxor fleet is up, down and packed away before most hotels start serving breakfast.
- 034-Days Nile Cruise From Aswan To Luxor including Abu Simbel and Hot Air BalloonCruise boats sail on set days from set ports, so the boat picks your dates rather than the other way round.
- 04Luxor Valley of the Kings & Tutankhamun Tomb TripTutankhamun’s tomb needs its own ticket on top of the Valley pass, and which three tombs the standard pass opens is rotated by the ministry.
Noon to four, the Giza sand is no place to be standing.
Summer on the plateau runs past forty degrees and the Valley of the Kings is a rock oven by ten in the morning. The answer is the one Cairo has used for centuries: go out early, then get under a roof. Galleries, a covered souk, a hammam, and a boat with an awning over the deck.
By place — capital, river and coast
By kind of day — temple, reef, dune or deck
Cairo, Luxor, Aswan, then the coast: the order almost everybody takes.
The newest Egyptian tour reviews.
The rest of the new ones →
Quad Safari, Parasail, Glass Boat Experience in Sharm El Sheikh
Read our review →
Introduction: Diving from the Reef in Sharm El Sheikh
Read our review →
Marsa Mubarak snorkeling with dugong and turtles – marsaalam
Read our review →
Bahariya Oasis & White Desert A Private Day Adventure
Read our review →
2-Day Bahariya & White Desert Private Camp Adventure
Read our review →
Book online Sound and Light Show at Karnk Temple in Luxor
Read our review →
Philae Temple Sound & Light Show with Entrance Fees
Read our review →
